More Scams Supported By The Taxpayers

This is a problem in many jurisdictions that employ ex-cons in violence interdiction efforts. The cons use their positions to mask their continuing criminal enterprises. Street cops see this, shake their heads and curse the incompetent fools who support these efforts. The politicians and administrators (see incompetent fools) just wring their hands, mouth the "this is terrible" and "he was turning his life around" platitudes and continue their nonsensical attempts to keep the lofos, government bureaucrats and academia happy.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) claims an employee with Baltimore’s Safe Streets violence intervention program is tied to “a drug trafficking organization” associated with numerous shootings in the city.

The employee, 43-year-old Terrell Allen, is charged “with distribution and possession with intent to distribute drugs.” The ATF alleges that “Allen was overseeing a drug organization operating in the Latrobe Homes area.”

According to The Baltimore Sun, the Safe Streets program “hires ex-offenders to use their credibility on the streets to mediate disputes and prevent violence, out of the view of law enforcement, and city officials say it has been successful in cutting down violence in historically troubled areas.”

The city I work in uses the same kind of tactics; despite using this model for the last three years, last year broke all records for shootings and murders. The street crisis interdiction teams we use are provided up to date gang information but refuse to supply police with information that could save lives. This is in direct contradiction to the memorandum of understanding that supports these useless teams. Yet ... they are still supported with taxpayer dollars.

Story here.

IMHO many violence intervention programs are scams foisted by criminal justice professors/sociologists looking to publish and get lucrative consulting contracts and community-based not-for-profits seeking another government teat.